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13 March 2016

Malt O Meal - Marshmallow Mateys - Asda (by @NLi10)

Ah America. Land of the big burger, and the home of the sugar. Occasionally we get USA products show up in our supermarkets so don't have to pay the ludicrous import prices. Asda recently started stocking these Malt O Meal - Marshmallow Mateys.

In the UK we don't have cereals like this, with marshmallows in. We used to get Lucky Charms but the fun police (and poor sales) killed them so they became five pounds a box.

This looks similar enough to me.

Already though the lies and suspicious things are occurring. Green and purple food, and making them huge on the box isn't a great start.

Let's see what's in them.

Look at all those vitamins - must be good for us right! Why does nothing in the top section have an RDI? Never mind - look at the colours on the back...

And they are helping families - the box says so!

I thought MOM branded products were made up for Futurama - turns out it was a parody! Who knew!

At least they have a sense of humour about it - anchors and pirates are fun for all.

It's a delicious treat at any time of the day. Only don't have them right before bed like I did. That was a mistake. Funny colours and lots of sugar don't make for a restful night. The taste was fine if not a little sweet, and the texture was nicely familiar too.

But about that sugar...

This is normal Kellogs Cornflakes. Note - we don't put the RDI for the top half either - we are just as bad in the UK.

A surprisingly similar number of Kilo calories (113 vs 114), but how does the sugar content compare?

12g vs 2.4g (3% of daily) - so one 30g bowl is 15% of an ADULTs sugar allowance for the day? It also means that the cereal is 40% sugar.

And my portions - closer to 60g - which means that this is 30% of my sugar for the day.

I should note that I saw a lady at the bus stop with three boxes of these in a bag. Maybe it's one of those products that sells out fast. Maybe it's just a bit much for a supposedly healthy meal in the morning that they are providing free to poorer families!

Yes - it tastes great, and yes you can moderate portion size (or stick a handful in with a healthy cereal) but this really is a bit much considering the issues people are having with food. The American packaging doesn't include a guide to how much sugar should be consumed, and the U.K. one is bad enough at suggesting what should and shouldn't be consumed (who knew plain cornflakes had 113 Kcalories in a tiny portion?).

Breakfast is marketed hard as being healthy, and starting the day with nutritious carbs isn't all bad, but this all needs to be a bit more transparent and sugar needs to be more obvious.